Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) standards dictate that medical or laboratory samples (e.g., histologic specimen, such as microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants, animals, and humans) are to be identified and their medical containers (herein referred to as “print media”, “media”, “media containers”, or “media supplies”) (e.g., slides, cassettes, test tubes, flasks, etc.) be labeled as soon as a sample enters a medical laboratory in order to identify and track the sample and to reduce any potential errors caused by improper identification of the sample. To address these concerns, special laboratory printers (or simply referred to as “printers”) were developed. Laboratory printers are commonly used to print laboratory print media with certain identifying information. Typically, once a print media has been printed with a label, the sample contained on or within the media can be tracked throughout the process within the laboratory. However, due to various laboratory printer-related problems (such as high cost of the printer, and other technology- and non-technology-related limitations), many laboratories are forced to employ hand- or manual-labeling of the media.
To further enhance laboratory efficiency, software applications and systems (e.g., Laboratory Information System (LIS), Laboratory Integration Management Solution or Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), etc.) were developed to be used to reliably identify and track samples as they are introduced into laboratories. LIS refers to a software system that can be used to receive, process, and store information generated by laboratory processes. LIMS refers to a software or database system that is used to integrate laboratory software and instruments, manage laboratory samples, standards, users, etc., in guiding laboratory samples through laboratories based on a set of defined processes or workflows for quality control in testing these samples. Since LIMS can facilitate simultaneous tracking of thousands of samples, there remains the need for accurate identification of each sample and the media that holds it.
For example, problems arise when it is desired that a sample be processed entirely through the LIMS and that the media containing the sample has a machine-readable label so that the sample's diagnosis time in the laboratory can be improved and reliably tracked. Certain conventional laboratory printers are capable of adding machine-readable labels to media. Although the use of machine-readable labeling may provide some improvement in sample diagnosis time, it can also introduce a new set of problems for laboratories and may not even be capable of being performed in certain laboratories due to, for example, the high cost of adding machine-readable identifiers and/or the laboratory's inherent limitations (e.g., space limitation). For example, the use of machine-readable labeling may not be employed in most laboratories as the laboratories are being squeezed by reduced budgets and reimbursements and consequently are having to reduce their physical space (that could have been used to hold large printing equipment) in order to allow for more patient capacity. In addition to not having sufficient space for large printers, these laboratories are also becoming averse to high capital costs relating to the existing printer technologies and are looking for ways to reduce costs and be able to pass their operating expenses on to their patients to help improve their bottom line. Further, laboratories are also being driven to reduce their “green” footprint by reducing consumables and the power requirements.
There are additional problems associated with the aforementioned conventional laboratory printers. For example, while printer capital acquisition costs are extremely high, these printers also require dedicated computers (e.g., personal computers (PCs)) as printer operators or operating computers to print media labels). Because the conventional printers are not designed like general computing printers and still employ old connectivity technologies, these printers require a computer be dedicated as an operator or operating computer for the sole purpose of printing on a particular type of media. One example of the old connectivity technologies is the 9-Pin Serial interface which has become obsolete on general computing platforms, but it is still being used with these conventional laboratory printers and is, at least partially, responsible for extremely slow printing outputs. Further, as aforementioned, these conventional printers are limited to printing only a single type of media (e.g., a cassette or a slide, but not both). This limitation further complicates the laboratory space limitation situation as it requires laboratories to have multiple printers along with multiple corresponding dedicated operating computers for printing on multiple media types, such as requiring one printer and its corresponding operating computer for printing on cassettes and another printer and its corresponding operating computer for printing on slides. As the deprecated operating systems and components of the host computers age, the costs of the systems continually escalate.
Current laboratory printing technologies for conventional laboratory printers include ink-jet and ribbon printers. One problem with the laboratory ink-jet printers is that they require using a special ink that is ultraviolet (UV) sensitive that can be cured so that any chemicals used in the sample diagnosis process do not accidently remove the printed label from the media. However, each time a UV light bulb (that is required to cure the special ink) goes out (typically, without a warning), it carries the potential to contaminate hundreds of samples and render them unable to be tracked in the LIMS, by way of the uncured UV sensitive ink. Ribbon printers require that a user correctly and cautiously load a ribbon into a ribbon printer without damaging or wasting too much of the ribbon. Further, instead of pre-loading laboratory media into ribbon printers for automatic printing, a user is required to load the media and continue watching the printer ribbon to be sure that the ribbon does not run to the end and stop all media printing processes.
Conventional printers are high in cost, restricted in their ability to print media (such as limited to printing only one particular type of media), limited in their ways of tracking and identifying samples, wasteful in terms of power and physical footprint and in requiring a dedicated operating computer, employ obsolete connectivity technologies, are error-prone, etc.